Wednesday, March 23, 2016

Iraq’s Interior Minister: Fake Bomb Detectors Fiasco

The Independent’s Patrick Cockburn recently interviewed
Iraq’s Interior Minister Mohammed Ghabban, and discussed the ADE-651 bomb
detectors. The minister admitted that the 651s were a sign of the corruption
within the government, which undermined the country’s security. Ghabban went on
to say that officials who took bribes to buy the devices are blocking any
investigation into the incident. Jim McCormick who manufactured the 651s was convicted
of fraud over them in an English court in 2013. During his trial it was
revealed that the 651s had no working parts. The antenna that was supposed to
point towards bombs was not connected to anything. Likewise the data card that
was inserted did not do anything. Iraq’s Interior Ministry conducted its own
investigation and found that 75% of the money spent on the devices actually
went to kickbacks to Ministry officials. During his trial McCormick corroborated
that when he admitted to paying bribes to Iraqis. Despite all this, Minister
Ghabban didn’t explain why the ADE-651s are still being used in Iraq. In
February for example, the head of the Baghdad Operations Command claimed
that they worked 30-40% of the time, showing that members of the Iraqi
government were still unwilling to admit their mistakes.

SOURCES

Cockburn, Patrick, “Iraq’s Interior Minister on why state
corruption is helping the murderous campaign of Isis Baghdad,” The Independent,
3/2/16

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About Me

Musings On Iraq was started in 2008 to explain the politics, economics, security, culture and history of Iraq via original articles and interviews. If you wish to contact me personally my email is: motown67@aol.com